


Merciful Gods

by AngiePen



Category: Actor RPF, Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Gender or Sex Swap, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 03:45:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngiePen/pseuds/AngiePen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Viggo and Sean, rival archaeologists and adventurers who've formed a partnership of convenience, have finally found a temple of legend they've been searching for for years.  But a night of celebrating their good fortune has unexpected consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Merciful Gods

**An Island in the South Pacific, 1946**

Viggo woke up afterwards with some really amazing memories of the best sex he'd ever had. He'd never blacked out before but was more than happy to pay that price in exchange for that truly mind-blowing climax.

And speaking of mind-blowing, they'd found it! He and Sean had both been searching for the hidden temple of Kalanu Malee for years, running into each other on this or that island, in various libraries and markets and villages. Once, they'd found themselves practically eyeball-to-eyeball on a steamship out of San Francisco with nearly identical cargos to outfit expeditions into the Andes in search of the same Incan ceremonial center and the same gem-encrusted skull. After some weeks at sea they'd agreed to hunt for them together, although somehow both had neglected to mention same in either written reports or the occasional telegraph back home. They'd found the ceremonial center but not the skull, which at that point in their working relationship had probably been just as well.

Their rivalry had always been guardedly friendly, but they'd finally decided to pool their resources on a more permanent basis. Their respective sponsoring institutions, the University of Idaho and the Sheffield Institute of Antiquities, were bitter rivals so neither of them had mentioned their relatively recent pair-up to the people writing the checks. And they'd have to figure out how to divide things up... some time.

The fringe benefits were great, though. They'd ended up falling into bed together one night four months ago after a long evening of listening to the local kahuna of the spirits recite his tribe's mythological history -- from the beginning of course. It'd been a long story and it would've been insulting to their hosts to refuse the refreshments offered, so they'd staggered back to their hut afterward, leaning on each other and laughing and tripping over the shadows on the ground and slamming into the closed door a couple times before remembering how to open it. Helping each other undress had led to teasing and tickling and finally fucking. Which had become a comfortable habit.

But this -- this had been more than "comfortable," by a few orders of magnitude. Viggo rolled over, a huge grin on his face, ready to find out whether Sean wanted to get back to work or stay right here on the surprisingly comfortable sand floor of the buried temple and go for round two, when something struck him as weird.

Weird as in strange. Odd. Off. His body felt different. Not aching -- that wouldn't be very different, considering what they'd been up to just a short while earlier -- but off balance. Like his skin was on wrong and his flesh had shifted sideways or something.

Her turned onto his side to shake Sean awake and stopped, a cold sliver of dread piercing his heart. There was something... _hanging_ from his chest. Some weight that shifted when he moved. He brought up a shaking hand, hesitated, then touched.

His scream -- a very clear, dulcet scream -- brought Sean jerking awake, yelling. He scrambled to his feet and looked around wildly, then looked down. Another bellow of shock echoed through the temple, bouncing off the hewn rock of the volcanic cave.

"Who the fuck are you?! What are you doing here? Did you follow us? Where's Viggo?? Shit!" Sean suddenly appeared to remember he was naked and went scrambling for his trousers.

"Sean, it's me." Viggo's voice was low and soft and he felt unaccustomed tears pooling in his eyes as he curled inward, his arms crossed over his breasts.

"You who?!" Sean spat, hopping up and down while trying to get his leg into the right hole. "No offense but I've have remembered you. Who the hell are you, how'd you find this place, and where the fuck is Viggo?!"

Viggo curled up, arms around knees, trying to hide the breasts that really didn't feel like they belonged. Shifting around brought a distinct _lack_ of weight further south to his attention and he moaned, burying his head in his arms. He wanted to go exploring again with his hand but was too terrified of what he wouldn't find.

Sean did up his trousers and pulled on his undershirt, then strode over and glared down at Viggo. "I said, who the hell are you?" he growled. "I'm usually politer to ladies but you'll pardon if I assume you're not much of a lady, crawling around naked beside strange gentlemen."

That was low and Viggo tilted his head and glared up at him. "You're not much of a gentleman either, so we're even." His voice wasn't actually much higher pitched than it'd been before, but it was lighter, with less strength behind it. He coughed and tried again, deliberately giving it more force. "Remember the time in Moana Apu with that fisher boy? _And_ his sister?"

"How the fuck do--?" Sean stopped, then took a step back. "Wait...."

"It's me, Sean," Viggo said, still concentrating on projecting his voice. Better -- practice was helping, at least to his own ears. "Viggo? Your academic nemesis? The one who let you fuck him twice last night in exchange for a reasonably hot blowjob? It's fucking _me,_ Sean! I just have tits now!"

"Missing a few other bits too," Sean muttered, glancing down between Viggo's splayed ankles.

"I know!" Viggo bellowed while scrambling to his feet. Her feet? Fuck that -- _his_ feet. He stalked up to Sean, ignoring the swing-slap of his breasts, and poked him in the chest. "I've noticed, all right! If all you can do is point out the obvious then you can just shut the fuck up!"

Sean smirked. "Definitely not a lady."

Viggo decked him.

 

By the time Sean groaned and rolled over, Viggo was dressed and studying the altar they'd fucked in front of the night before. His trousers were obscenely tight, his shoes were too big but not horribly so, and the shirt fit surprisingly well; a narrower ribcage and shoulders made up for the extra bulk of his breasts.

Viggo ignored Sean's pained griping and said, "This is all the same couple, here in the carvings. We thought it was an orgy because some of them were two men and some of them were a man and a woman but the second man _is_ the woman. Or he is after this point." He traced a line of figures, right to left, the stopped and tapped on the first carving where the woman appeared. "This isn't a fertility temple, or at least not the way we thought. The rituals here weren't just some vague prayer to the gods to make the women pregnant, they were--"

"Wait, wait, just hang on a bit." Sean staggered over and laid a gentle hand on Viggo's shoulder. "I know this is upsetting but don't go all hysterical on me. There's got to be a--"

Viggo spun around and smacked Sean's hand away. He glared up at him and hissed, "Don't you _ever_ patronize me like that again, you bastard. I don't give a damn what parts I have or don't have -- I'm a _man_ and if you ever treat me like some hysterical woman again I'll plant your ass on the ground again and I'll keep doing it until I've knocked some brain cells loose!"

Sean smirked and raised an eyebrow. "I'm stronger than you now. You just caught me by surprise last time, is all."

"You've always been stronger than me," Viggo retorted. "But I'm faster and I know more tricks than you."

"The hell you do!" Sean puffed up and glared.

Viggo glared right back. "Look, it doesn't matter. What matters is what happened to me and how, and how we can get me changed back because I'm absolutely _not_ going to spend the rest of my life as a woman!" He felt his heart slamming in his chest and his breath coming in sharp pants and he had an urge to just scream or cry like he _was_ about to get hysterical and he knew it had to be fucking hormones or something and there was no way in hell he was going to let Sean see it so he concentrated on breathing deeply and forcing his muscles to relax. Getting all panicked -- and it had to be perfectly natural for a man to panic when he woke up and found his pecker missing! -- wasn't going to help anything.

Sean cocked his head and scowled. "I still think you're some broad Viggo found in the last port and that he's going to jump out and laugh at me for buying this rubbish."

"Well, you let me know when he shows up," Viggo muttered. He turned back to the carved altar and went down on one knee to study the pictographs closer to the floor. "Right now, though, remember what the kahuna said about this place?"

"Which one?" Sean drawled.

Viggo eyerolled and shot him an exasperated glance over his shoulder. "The last one, the one who gave us the clue that actually helped us find the place? As opposed to the four others who had us chasing our tails through the jungles on eight different islands all this time? Pay attention, will you?

"He said this was where their ancestors had come to ask the spirits for help when so many of their people had been taken by disease, and nearly all the women and children. And that this temple had been built by the original settlers who'd come from the south, across the open ocean for vast distances along a strong current. They couldn't go home and they had no women with them."

"Right," Sean agreed. "So they stole some women from the next island over and did their fertility dance and got them all pregnant."

"That's what we thought but that's not what the old man _said._ What he said was, they came to the temple, performed the ritual and the gods gave them more women."

"So, what, you think the gods just materialized them out of nothing...? No, wait, you don't think-- I mean...." Sean trailed off, staring down at Viggo, his eyes wide.

"Unless you can think of a better idea then this is going to have to be our working hypothesis." Viggo eyed Sean for a few more seconds but he didn't seem to be getting ready to relax and accept their altered reality any time soon, so he shrugged and ignored him. He had rolls of paper and charcoal sticks in his pack; he pulled out what he needed to take rubbings and notes and got to work.

 

"All right, I think I have it figured out," Viggo said. He (or she -- no, _he_ dammit) stood up and stretched. The sand floor of the cave was more comfortable than bare rock would've been but he'd been sitting, kneeling and sitting again, leaning over to squint at more carvings, shuffling notes and flipping through what few references they'd brought. Viggo had always been better with pictographs than Sean so Sean had spent most of the day hiking back to the nearest village -- it was an amazingly short trip as the crow flew, without all the winding around from landmark to landmark they'd done while hunting for the temple -- since they'd only brought supplies for a couple of days. Viggo'd absolutely refused to leave until he'd translated everything he possibly could and until they'd tried everything they could possibly think of. Sean had said something about hauling "her" out over his shoulder for "her" own good and Viggo'd decked him. After that, Sean had shut up and gotten packed for the supply run.

Viggo'd hollered after him not to forget an ice bag for his jaw.

Sean had cursed at him because the nearest ice bag, to say nothing of the nearest ice, was a good thousand miles or more away. Then he'd apologized for cursing. Then he'd cursed again and stomped off.

He'd been grumping around the cave, just outside the temple proper, ever since he'd returned, unpacking his knapsack and arranging things for a longer stay than they'd originally planned. He'd brought food in to Viggo around nightfall, then curled up in his bedroll and gone to sleep just short of midnight.

Viggo had worked through the night, too keyed up to sleep. It was easier to concentrate once Sean was asleep anyway; having him banging and stomping around, muttering to himself and rattling boxes and clanging pans had been maddening.

The fact that Viggo's new bits had tingled whenever Sean was about hadn't helped either.

"You're sure?" Sean wandered over and stood with his arms crossed, leaning against a beautifully carved pillar depicting the rain god mating with the breadfruit goddess. "So what, d'we have to sacrifice a piglet or something?"

Viggo smirked at him, his hands on his hips. (His hips were too wide. His arms felt funny in that position.) "Nothing that drastic. We just have to have sex in front of the altar again."

"Umm?" said Sean. "Wait, you're sure? I thought the whole point of this was to give the stranded natives women so they wouldn't die out. If we have sex, how do you know the gods here won't just... just, put you in the family way, like, right off the first time?" His eyes were raking up and down Viggo's newly bulgy body but there was real concern in his voice.

"I can guarantee you won't get me pregnant," Viggo explained patiently. He noticed Sean's wince at the bald use of that word in what obviously was "mixed company" to him. "I need to show the gods that I have no desire or intention of being a woman, which means you have to take me the same way you did before."

"Umm?" said Sean again. "I mean, you're sure?" He looked comically disappointed, as though he'd been looking forward to trying out the newly installed parts.

"Yes, Sean, I'm sure. Believe me, I have much more to lose than you do and I'm not taking any chance of getting this body pregnant. The sooner I'm back to being myself and you stop behaving like a patronizing ass, the happier I'll be."

Sean snorted and glared. "Well, I beg your pardon for being well brought up, then. I know you're Viggo but right now you're a woman and my mum and dad taught me how to treat women properly."

"This 'woman' doesn't appreciate it," Viggo retorted. "Now, get over here, and don't bother bringing your clothes."'

Sean coughed out a laugh but showed up half a minute later without his clothing but with the stoppered bottle of cooking oil.

Their first clinch was awkward. There was a lot of hesitation and shifting and turning before Viggo tumbled them into the sand and straddled Sean's hips. "I'm on top," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'd fuck you if I could but I can't so this is the next best thing."

He slicked up one hand and carefully inserted two fingers into himself. By the time he was opened enough to think of replacing his fingers with Sean's cock, said cock was hard enough to make it practical. He knelt up and carefully lowered himself until he felt his body stretching, then stopped. Slowly a bit farther and then stopped.

It felt like his whole body was new, instead of being his old body with a few parts replaced. Which made sense, intellectually, if anything about this fantastical situation could've been said to make sense. His face had changed, if Sean's initial reaction were anything to go by, and what he could see of his body without a mirror was different all over. Smoother, less angular, less hairy. He was muscular for a woman but less so than he'd been as a man. His voice was different and his balance felt off. If the gods of this place had remade his whole body then he supposed he must be a virgin, even in ways he hadn't been before.

He was very glad he had no intention of losing his "female" virginity. He'd only participated in that particular exercise once and despite all his nervous care it hadn't seemed terribly enjoyable for his girlfriend.

By the time he was fully seated on Sean's cock, the two of them were panting together and Sean was visibly restraining himself from thrusting up. Viggo gave his hips another twist to loosen his passage a bit more, then said, "All right, I'm ready." He knelt up again until Sean almost slipped out, then settled down in a long, smooth glide. Then he did it again, faster. And again, harder.

His breasts were bouncing when he moved and the alien sensation was just distracting. He cupped them in his hands and the disconnect in his brain -- the conflict between the clear feel of someone else's body under his hands and the equally clear feel of his hands on his own body -- was enough to throw his rhythm off for a minute before he struggled to focus once more on what he was doing. On what _they_ were doing together.

The next distraction was the tingling in his nipples. He yanked his hands away and leaned forward to prop himself up against Sean's chest. There -- _that_ felt right. With his torso at an angle his breasts swayed but didn't slap and that was good enough; he focused on ignoring them.

Sean gave him a rumbling moan and grasped his hips, arching up in time with Viggo's movements. His eyes squinted halfway shut and his gasping had a low, vocal thread to it. Viggo saw a bead of sweat run down his temple and into his hair and his could feel Sean's heart speed up, deep in his chest where Viggo's hands were pressing.

Something was wrong, though, and it took several more minutes of frustrated activity before he realized what the problem was.

"Dammit! I don't have a prostate!"

"What?" Sean gasped. His rhythm faltered. "Wait, what did you say?"

"I don't have a prostate! I'm not going to be able to come this way."

Sean blinked a couple of times, then smiled up at him. "That's not a problem. I can help with that." He reached toward Viggo's crotch with one hand but Viggo slapped it away.

"No! I can't!" Viggo sped up again, angry frustration giving him the extra energy which usually came from the climb toward climax. "I have to do this like a man, as best as I can. I can't do anything female. It's the act that's important -- I don't have to come." He shot Sean an evil grin. "You can owe me a blowjob after I get back to myself."

"Not a problem," Sean agreed. "Women don't feel the need like men do anyway."

Viggo cursed and smacked him, his flat hand making a loud slapping noise on Sean's sweaty chest. Over Sean's returned curse, Viggo said, "Believe me, I'm feeling every bit as much frustration right now as I ever did when I was a man. You definitely owe me and I _will_ collect."

"All right, all right! If you say so. Just don't stop, then, and we can get back to normal!" Sean rubbed the reddened spot on his chest but kept his hands away from Viggo's alien parts. Sean thrust and Viggo rode him, and watched him with an intensity he usually didn't have the spare attention for when he was in this position and fucking himself to his own orgasm.

Sean really was an incredibly handsome man and Viggo knew it wasn't just female hormones saying so. His skin glistened with sweat, the shadows flickering in the light of the pair of oil lamps they'd brought in. There wasn't enough light to really see his eyes, but they'd fucked outside in the daytime sun and Viggo knew they'd have darkened to a deep green, the pupils wide and black. He was lean and strong and his hands were pressing Viggo's softer flesh into his hipbones; there'd probably be a pair of bruises the next day.

And I don't care a bit, Viggo thought to himself, so long as the bruises are on either side of a cock and a pair of balls.

He clenched his muscles around Sean and whispered, "Come on! Come for me! I know you can, you want to! Fill me up!"

Sean was always susceptible to verbal encouragement when he was close and that tipped him over. He arched and grunted, and his face screwed up and then relaxed when the built-up tension released and Viggo felt him spasming inside his body.

At last! There, any second now....

They didn't fall asleep this time, not being nearly as tired as they'd been the previous evening after four days of hard hiking and climbing, but Viggo felt everything go soft and run, as though the world were melting around him and taking him with it. His body felt weird in a way which would've been frightening if he hadn't expected _something_ weird and been eagerly looking forward to it.

He felt Sean's cock shrink and slip out and smiled to himself.

Viggo rolled off into the soft sand and reached slowly down, exploring with one hesitant hand, then relaxed and let out a gleeful whoop when he found everything present and accounted for, from a smooth, solid chest on down to parts south. He yelled, "Thank you!" to whatever gods might be listening.

Sean echoed his yell a moment later, but he wasn't giving thanks.

"What the bloody hell?!" Sean screamed in a clear soprano. "Viggo! Whad'you _do?!_ "

Viggo rolled up on his side and grinned down at Sean. A very smooth and curvy Sean, with lush, pink-tipped breasts and sweetly rounded hips, and an aghast look on his fair, stubble-free face.

"I didn't do anything," Viggo said with a lazy smile. "The gods of this temple are running things, not me. I wanted to get my self back as soon as possible and this was the only way to do it."

"Well, you can bloody well just fuck me, or I can fuck you or whatever it was we did and turn me back, then!" Sean was sitting trembling in the sand, clutching his breasts with a look of horror.

"Oh, no!" Viggo shook his head and scrambled up onto his knees. "You were a patronizing ass and I'm not going through _that_ again! If you think you can persuade one of the locals to come back here and let you ride his cock, feel free to head down to the village and try. _Mine_ isn't going anywhere near your ass, though, not until you're back to yourself, so don't even think it."

"How the hell am I supposed to get back to meself if you won't help me! Damn ye ta hell, this was _your_ problem and y'just passed it on to me like it were nothing!" Sean's accent grew broader when he was emotional and he was very obviously angry and frightened and -- dare Viggo think it? -- near hysterical?

He grinned down at Sean and said, "Now, now, dear, don't go all hysterical on me," in a gently cajoling tone he knew would drive Sean right over the edge. Viggo had become quite familiar with that edge during the last day or so and thought Sean should get to know it too.

The explosion was composed of slapping and cursing and punching and tears. Viggo had no scruples about hitting a "girl," at least not in this case. Just as he hadn't been able to think of himself as a woman when it'd been him, he didn't really think of Sean as one either, tits or no. He pulled his punch because Sean _was_ weaker now, and because a shot in the jaw where he'd hit him last time was going to hurt like a bastard regardless of the target's sex.

Sean ended up curled in the sand, cradling his jaw and struggling to stop the tears flowing. Viggo sank back down to one knee and laid a hand lightly on Sean's shoulder. When it was slapped off he didn't push.

"It's temporary, Sean," he explained, trying to be patient. He pointed to a series of carvings on the wall opposite the altar and said, "See? If you don't get pregnant then it lasts for a moon cycle. And you were right -- I'm pretty sure that one instance of intercourse, especially here in the temple, _would_ result in a pregnancy, so we really can't do much for the next month. But all we have to do is hide you from the outside world for twenty-eight days and you should turn into yourself again and have all your bits back."

Sean sniffled and sat up, glaring across at him. He stared at the carvings and then back at Viggo. "You're a real bastard, you know that?"

Viggo rolled his eyes and snorted. "You were such a perfect gentleman for me, I just thought you should get an opportunity for me to treat you the same way."

He got another string of curses in return, the dialect so thick he could only understand about every fourth word.

"It's all right," Viggo replied calmly. He was enjoying this and had no intention of feeling sorry for the big jerk. Well, the smaller, curvy, soft jerk. He grinned and added, "I'll head back to the village tomorrow and get us a month's worth of supplies. I might even stop by the kahuna's hut and let him know their gods are still looking out for them. Of course, he probably knows already, but he'll probably want to add this story to his histories."

Viggo waited for Sean to struggle back into his trousers and shirt, muttering threats and complaints the entire time, before saying, "Oh, Sean?"

"Yeah, what?" Sean snarled back.

"You still owe me a blowjob."

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this one in 2007 when there'd been considerable meta going around about genderswap fics, and in particular criticizing many of said fics for having the male character who was unexpectedly (through magic or however) turned into a woman suddenly crave makeup, high heels and push-up bras, and start acting stereotypically girly, as though any of those things are linked to having two X-chromosomes. I participated some in these discussions and lurked in many more, and this fic came out of this mass of meta.
> 
> LOTRiPpers were notoriously oblivious to what went on in other fandoms, though, and to the meta-fandom (and Metafandom) discussions that flowed between journals, so when this story was posted, the response was nothing like I'd expected. The discussions in comments were great, though -- probably the best fic-inspired comment threads that ever happened in my journal.


End file.
